


Bravado

by idgit_with_a_fidget



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Arc Reactor, Arc Reactor Kink, M/M, Science Bros, Sensation Play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-02
Updated: 2013-02-02
Packaged: 2017-11-27 23:04:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/667472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idgit_with_a_fidget/pseuds/idgit_with_a_fidget
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony shows Bruce his best piece of work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bravado

With a large bravado sweep of his arm, Tony cleared the table’s surface of scattered biochemistry equipment and scabby papers, sending them flying and clattering onto the lab’s steel flooring and giving himself the space to lever himself up. He perched on the edge of the lab table, feet dangling aimlessly and now at Bruce’s eye level, or perhaps several centimetres taller. The luminescent contraption in Tony’s chest penetrated the cloth of his top: a navy opaque blue, easily mistaken for black. Bruce stood, head tilted to one side in a gesture of intrigue. 

“Take a look,” Tony urged, taking his shirt between his index finger and thumb. 

Bruce squinted, the lights in the lab dull and radiating a confined cyan-white glow. 

“But I can already see it,” he said. 

“No, I mean take a proper look,” Tony reinforced, and began to tease his shirt up to his collar bone with fluid gracefulness, as though he had rehearsed before a mirror previously in preparation. “I know you want to, Banner. Come on!”

Was this some sort of foolishly bold attempt at making a statement?, Bruce wondered as the hem of Tony’s shirt was tugged up over his chest to his stubble-sewn jaw to reveal the healthy toned skin beneath. Or was it simple a friendly invitation? Come and look. See? See how clever it is? See how smart I am? Like a child desperately craving attention, recognition and praise. Bruce did not know, but it did not bother him.

Buried inside Tony’s chest was the arc reactor. Bruce marvelled at it with infantile, abstract curiosity. It was larger than he had expected, and it glowed a neutral blue that illuminated Tony’s face like a torch placed under the chin of a spooky story-teller. It was positioned where the ribs met in the middle, right on the breast bone, instead of directly on the left side where –if Bruce’s anatomy studies were correct (which indefinitely they were)- the heart was concealed. The strange positioning may have been a decision based on vanity. 

In total, Bruce counted nine small circular lights surrounding the larger, main circle, like chairs around a campfire. And around the reactor indigo-grey veins spread out across the skin like little slender fingers or ink mingling with water in a jar, fading in colour and vibrancy as it blossomed. If he were to listen close enough he could just about hear the gentle murmur of machinery, humming monotonously as it worked tirelessly to prevent the host body from being seized by a sudden cardiac arrest. He imagined the intense planning, the various futile attempts that caused defeat and determination equally. He then let his imagination to wander to more morbid thoughts: the wires that coiled and writhed beneath the flesh, taking on a life of their own; the devastating consequences if the technology was to fail-not even this could be immune to every virus. For a moment, Bruce felt his connection with Tony tighten. If you were to strip him of his skin he too hid a monster beneath. 

Bruce caught his breath, almost forgetting he was holding it. His eyes flickered to Tony. Tony grinned.

“Cool, huh?” then he nodded. “Touch it. I dare you.”

“Will it hurt?”

“No.”

With a trembling hand, Bruce laid his palm upon the reactor, tentative and gingerly at first, but then as he was overcome with the natural impulses to investigate to gain knowledge, his touch became more professional and controlled. Tony squirmed a little under the sudden touch of the scientist’s warmish fingers like a patient feeling the icy nip of a stethoscope on their skin on for the first time. Bruce ran his hand across the surface. It was smooth beneath his fingertips, and he was aware that the reactor emitted a barely traceable heat that was faintly pleasant; the sort of tepid temperature carried by a late autumnal wind or a drowsy, struggling laptop computer. The skin around the reactor was warm and slightly puckered. Tony remained still and unflinching. Such intimate detail, Bruce concluded, was rarely exposed and shared in such a manner. He could easily create a cross-section of the billionaire in his mind’s eye, and he would dwell on it later whilst he lay awake on his side, scrawling imaginary notes around it and underlining bits in red. 

“Incredible,” he breathed, completely taken aback. “It must’ve hurt though.”

“Adapt to survive.”

He did not tell of the man underground.

For a moment, fleetingly, Bruce could sense a faint, irregular pulse thud asymmetrically in amongst the dense network of wires where capillaries should be. He suddenly was aware of the fragility of the man. Without his suit he was nothing more than the average blob of sculptured flesh. Flesh with an attitude and a hankering for fast food.

Bruce could crush that pulse. He could render its vessel, its sassy walking/talking transport, breathless and blue, and not feel the pain of guilt until it was too late when he’d sit in the darkened corner and cry and blame himself and stock up on so much self-loathing until the beast inside had picked away at anything human, leaving as much positivity as a vulture leaves meat on a carcass; only anger and rage and self-hate.

A tremble passed through his palm and he felt Tony’s heart stop.

_Did I do that?_

It started again. The tension in Bruce’s muscles subsided with relief. He smiled weakly, retreated.

Bruce lifted his head, hands sorting his shirt and suddenly found himself unexpectedly close to Tony’s face. Both were stunned. A beat. Bruce could feel Tony’s dry, odourless breath pass from his mouth onto Bruce’s upper lip, and his eyes were focussed on his lips, then his eyes, and back again. They were mere inches from one another, too frightened, too unsure, too intrigued to hideaway back into themselves and reality, and bury the incident with jokey remarks about what could have been.

Bruce inhaled deeply as though he was about to admit to a troublesome lie…and the mere inches were destroyed

The collision was not seamless. The connection was clumsy, rushed, uncertain, ill-experienced. It was a leap of faith; they did not merge with ease. And yet, the sensation was euphoric. Bruce crushed his lips against Tony’s and forced them apart, and tasted the inside of him. The other man grappled with whatever he could get a hold of to provide support from toppling over backwards onto the table, although unfortunately all the trinkets had been dispelled earlier. He was taken by surprise, however had not had time to decide whether or not it was unwelcome. 

Bruce applied pressure, deepening the kiss, not once feeling the need to pause of breath. Let his lungs expand and rupture, he reasoned, let him suffocate. He brought his hands behind Tony’s head, running his fingertips in his coarse, short hair that wasn’t long enough to get tangled in. Tony let out a sharp moan of pain, Bruce’s nails digging into the base of his neck like a falcon’s talons, and he toppled backwards, the weight of the scientist bearing down on him, one had around his waist, the other cradling the cap of his skull: trapping him. He was surprisingly light. For a while, they were a scuffle of limbs, clothes and appetite, and it was only until Bruce bit down on Tony’s lower lip that he managed to muster the strength –and courage- to wrestle him off. 

Stark stared, trying to mask his irregular breathing with hard, forceful swallows. Bruce cleared his throat, shaking the delirium from his vision.

“That was a bit…one-sided,” he admitted, but his face was without shame.

“Just a bit. Didn’t stand much of a chance, did I?” Tony concurred with a sheepish laugh, almost jealous that it hadn’t been him who had initiated it. Usually _he_ was the one who jumped on people, not the other way round; didn’t matter who or what you were. His lip throbbed. His chest and thighs prickled with the itch of an uncomfortable arousal. He fidgeted, tucking his top into his trousers, as though that would protect him or cover him. 

“It’s getting late,” Bruce muttered, checking a non-existent watch on his wrist. “I should go and get some sleep.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. See you at breakfast,” Tony murmured, attention wavering. “Pancakes?”

Bruce shook his head disbelievingly and mooched away, finger rubbing at the corner of his mouth as though scavenging the last scintillas to chew over. He resisted the urge to look behind him again; like Orpheus’ attempt to save Eurydice, and returned to his room. Tony slipped off of the table ledge, and began to pick things off of the floor.

“Do you need help with that, Sir?” enquired JARVIS, whose voice made Tony leap in surprise. 

“You…you saw all of that, did you?” Tony’s fingers traced the outline of the reactor through his shirt thoughtfully. 

“Of course, Sir,” replied JARVIS, and there was a hint of smugness in his voice. “I’ll start the microwave.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
